As master comics, John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan have the rare gifts that allow them to bring to life one of the world’s greatest comedy duos in the touching and nostalgic new movie, Stan & Ollie.

Stan & Ollie tells the story of Laurel & Hardy’s later years, when they set out on a variety tour of Britain in 1953 to help revive their careers. Diminished by age and with their golden era as the kings of Hollywood comedy now behind them, they face an uncertain future.

As the charm and beauty of their performances shine through, they reconnect with their adoring fans. The tour becomes a hit, but Stan & Ollie cannot quite shake the specter of their past; the long-buried ghosts, coupled with Oliver’s failing health, threaten their precious partnership. A portrait of the most tender and poignant of creative marriages, they are aware that they may be approaching their swan song while trying to rediscover just how much they mean to each other.

“This film reminds people who these two guys were the greatest comedy duo,” Reilly explains. “Anyone who is in comedy now owes them a tremendous debt for everything they gave us and all that they taught us.”

What did each of you see as the biggest challenge in stepping into these iconic shoes?

Coogan: The biggest challenge was to try and get under the skin and present something to an audience that was authentic and believable about who these guys were in private, what made them tick; the men behind the masks, if you like. That was undoubtedly the biggest challenge for both John and me.

Reilly: Anyone could do the typical moments with some of the classic scratching the top of your hair gestures. However, the challenge—and really the heart of what we tried to do—is in the title. The movie is not called Laurel & Hardy. The movie is called Stan & Ollie because the movie tried to be about what their actual lives were like, what were these men like, what did they mean to each other? That was something we felt like we had a little more creative license with and we could find, as opposed to just trying to be Laurel and Hardy. That is also a tall order right there.

How did you see the friendship between the two men? As I watched the movie, I saw kind of an unusual or unique love story, just in the way that they cared about each other and looked after each other.

Coogan: It was kind of like a marriage of sorts, a professional marriage if you’d like. The period we look at in their lives is when they were touring, which is 20 years after their heyday, and they were in the autumn of their lives. It was a period where they were sort of looking back on their lives and taking stock of everything.

Reilly: Yeah, the naturally retrospective time of their life. It was a real stroke of genius, to focus the movie on this last theatrical tour of theirs. They were already naturally themselves looking back on their lives and thinking about where they had come from. That’s what the heart of any movie that tries to be a biography tries to be. I thought this movie was a window on a more concentrated and more poignant look at their lives, to focus on this time when they were naturally themselves looking back.

Did you guys know each other before? Will you do anything special to keep your friendship going?

Coogan: Yes, I think John and I are solid right now, having gone through this intense experience of making this movie and then the press junket afterward. John and I, we had a long rehearsal period. It gave us an opportunity to get to know each other. Really, we went through the same process that Stan and Ollie did when Hal Roach brought them together. I knew John a little bit before the movie, but not a great deal.

Watching this movie felt like a true labor of love. It was sweet and funny, and I thought that you really captured the essence of these two comic geniuses. It also made me want to go back and see more of the old classic work. Was that your hope?

Reilly: That’s really great to hear, because that’s exactly what we’re hoping will come of this. It’s a way to point people back towards their work and remind them these guys are still relevant now, and when they were alive they didn’t quite get their due. It feels good to be able to remind people of the genius of these guys. They were masters of comedy, they figured out the ancient clowning secrets. It requires a lot of practice and rehearsal. We are on a mission for people to remember them. If you go to YouTube and watch one of their short films, I can almost guarantee that you will definitely laugh aloud.

Coogan: I agree with John, it goes beyond what we are doing. With both John and me, this is a kind of a love letter to Laurel & Hardy. For John, he wanted to honor Oliver Hardy, and I wanted to give a great big salute to the genius of Stan Laurel.

Did you have a Laurel and Hardy expert on the set?

Reilly: We had a couple of them. Jeff Pope himself was quite the writer. He did a lot of research in putting the script together in the first place, so he was a real font of information. And, of course, there have been many books written about them. Then there are the films themselves. We used the films themselves as a way to kind of reverse engineer what their personalities were like. They were the authors of their personalities; they weren’t handed them by a screenwriter. Stan wrote these scripts for Stan and Ollie, and to a certain degree, he based them on their personalities, or at least what they could already do very well.

Coogan: We also had Toby Sedgwick, who was a platform advisor. He coached John and me in a lot of the physicality of Stan and Ollie. That was extremely helpful. John and I are experienced in comedy, but he gave many tips and helped hammer out the detail of the performances.

What else do you want the audiences to take away from this movie?

Reilly: Well, I think it’s a good time for people to see a movie about friends overcoming difficulty and people caring about one another. For people who have seen the movie, one of the most satisfying things I’ve heard is that they say, “Wow, in this time of strife when people are so divided and there’s so much bad news in the world it feels really good to go to a film that feels like an embrace of humanity.”

Coogan: That’s right. It’s not a cynical movie. It’s a movie that tries to lift people up. And the movie totally has something in common with the movies of Laurel and Hardy; that both movies looked and laughed at humanity in a way that lifts you up and doesn’t put you down. There’s not a great deal of that around these days. I hope this is one of those movies that brings people together because there’s nothing in our movie that a 10-year-old or a 90-year-old could not enjoy.

When you two are just hanging out, not working, what do you do as buddies?

Reilly: Right now most of the time we spend together was to make the movie and now promoting the movie. Yes, that’s one of the beautiful things about doing a movie where you have a partner. You end up really loving that person, and I hope that Steve and I are able to keep going as friends for the rest of our lives. Certainly, it was such a momentous thing that we went through together, he’ll always be my brother in arms or my partner in clown.

Coogan: Amen.

What was it like coming back to Wreck-It Ralph, John?

Reilly: I felt really honored to do the first one because those movies put you in the hearts of kids. The second one was just an unbelievable second chance to go back to a character that I really loved. That’s another movie that’s about empathy and friendship. A lot of my films this year, and I have four coming out, that seems to be a recurring theme. I think the world could use it right now. I certainly enjoyed making it.

What do young fans say to you when they find out that you are Ralph?

Reilly: Well, it depends on how young they are. The youngest ones do not realize that cartoons are not real; so they’re a little confused at my appearance. But, yes, this is someone that kids can really relate to. Especially little boys who have trouble containing their energy sometimes and they end up breaking stuff. So, they really relate to Wreck-It Ralph.

AMG/Parade Digital

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